My British Tour Diary

Cheerio!



So Devon and I journeyed over to London this weekend, which was a blast. Though….not at first

First I had to take a midterm that I just found out I had less than 24 hours before (despite me continuously asking the teacher for the date). Then we had to catch the 200 bus to the Nice airport. No big deal, but when we go to get on the bus, they tell us that starting Feb 1 (two days before) the system was changed and we now have to take the 250. Okay, a bit of a bust, but no big deal. A 250 arrives, we go to get on, the bus driver doesn’t let us get on, and all I get out of his massive French rambling is “huit”. Eight. Eight what? Euros? The next buses is in eight minutes? That’s what we think, so we wait. Another arrives after an hour of freezing cold temperatures and insane wind…it slows down, we go to get on it, it accelerates and drives away before we even get to the door! At this point, we’ve waited over an hour and a half in the terrible weather to get a bus to the airport. We finally get on a 20 hoping to move down the road, so we can at least make some progress. We arrive at a train station that we hope we can take to Nice so we can get to the Nice airport. Guess what? Trains are on strike. No cabs either, because we tried calling and they would not pick us up in Biot, only Antibes (even though these are literally 5 km away if even). So Devon and I are standing in the middle of no where, in the dark, the cold, no cab, no bus, no train, no hitch-hiking, plane leaves in two hours. Naturally, we are panic-stricken. Is this trip even going to happen? Omg we’re going to miss it, goodbye plane tickets. Neither of us wanted to be the first to say it, but we didn’t think there was anyway to get there.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel! A 250 is coming our way! We frantically flail our limbs with all the glory of a spastic cheerleader, and miraculously, the bus stops. Thank. God. As usual, we get the “this is not a bus stop!” lecture, but we’ve come to learn that if they still stop, and all you get is a lecture, who cares if it’s not a bus stop. It’s been a while since I’ve been so grateful to hear English. The very kind bus driver explained to us that when the bus systems were changed, the price escalated to 8 euros. OOOOOOOOHhhh. Eight EUROS. Gotcha. A small price to pay to avoid the price-gouging of a cab and a safe trip to the airport on time. She drops us off at the Terminal, I say “thank you will all of my heart!” …though I might have said “thank you with all of my body”. Either way she seemed to appreciate it, so it’s all good. We go through security and get to the terminal, desperate for English and only moderately curious if we’ll get back into the country. (We’re missing some paper work, that we’re technically not supposed to leave the country without. Supposedly, you can’t get back in unless you have documentation of a residency permit, which we have started, but will not receive for 3 months).

Once we get to London, rejoicing that we finally made it, we miss the last train into the city (from Gatwick) by literally 30 seconds. Gotta love it. So we wait 40 minutes and catch the last rail into the city, just in time for the metro to close. Joy. So we make it to a bus station, starving and exhausted, but still grateful to be there. We figure out what night bus (aka Knight Bus! SO awesome J ) to take to our couchsurfer’s stop, but you need exact change. We have no pounds….we just arrived in the country. So we go to Burger King to get exact change, and as soon as we step up, they pull down their metal gate to close up shop. Awesome. Okay, no worries, let’s go ask those cops what to do. Okay…no help there. I ended up (quite audaciously) asking a cab driver for change, which he was very sweet about and gladly helped me out. Our bus takes about an hour or so to arrive, but we finally catch it and trek to our house, arriving at 1:30am. Did I mention we left the apartment at 6pm? Good times.

The house we stayed at was home to seven students who attend London University, and who were all absolutely lovely. They were all so nice and so charming, I just wanted to constantly hug them and them how amazing they are, despite only knowing them for a day. We stayed up with Tim til about 2:30 after getting a grand tour and meeting its occupants, and then passed out.

The next morning….way too early, at 7am, we head out for a full day of cliché tourism. We’re so exhausted and I am incredibly sick. But you know me, being sick is NOT going to stop me from exploring a new place, no sir! Well we start of taking the metro to Trafalgar Square so we can meet up with our tour group for changing of the guard. After almost throwing up on everyone in the metro (I am not exaggerating, but I’ll spare you the rather gross details) we make it to the square, explore, take pictures, and talk with the tourist office guys. They were very nice. They gave us the tour for free if we bought out Tour of London tickets from them, which we had to do anyways, so it was a win-win. So we met for the tour (with me barely surviving. I kept shaking and could hardly stand) and started on our way! The tour was 2 hours, and our guide was very knowledgeable and charming, sprinkling some British humor here and there. As for changing of the guard, it was probably because I was the sickest I’ve been since swine flu, but I was not feeling it. There were like 5 changings of the guard and half the time the ceremony was rather empty (i.e. handing over the keys to Buckingham Palace….but there are no real keys) with lots of short sword movements and yelling. I loved the band, and marching along with them was fun, and the Palace was spectacular. I suppose I’m just not one for empty traditions, especially while on death’s door. Afterwards, we find a place to eat, Devon taking magnificent care of me because he’s amazing like that, and then I have the “there’s no way on Earth I am doing anything else” moment. That’s right. I finally called it quits, and trudged home with Ziploc baggie in hand. Devon stayed out and hit up some sights, and the weather was the best London has seen all winter. When I got back to the house, Sasha answered the door (she didn’t meet me before) and all it took was “Hi, sorry to bother you, I’m the couch-surfer” and before you know it, I had blankets, water, lots of meds, reminders of “our house is your house,” and a good friend. This is where I remind you that people can be absolutely amazing. They truly are. I pass out for three hours, and then Devon comes home! Yay! After that we both take another hour to ourselves, and then head out to Soho for dinner and a comedy show.

I am still rather ill, so I didn’t get to enjoy the meal too much, but it’s undeniable that the adorable Italian restaurant we ate at was amazing. And I LOVED Soho so much! It was so nice to see the city abuzz, actually understanding what they’re all saying (lol), and just walked around, letting our eyes feast on the surplus of culture, color, and lights. We finished dinner a bit early, hit up an internet café, and then headed to the Soho Theater….very small, but there was a nice bar/lounge we could find comfort in while we waited. Finally our 11pm show started, and to my surprise, it was really enjoyable. It was called the Pajama Men, and it was these two guys acting out a comedic skit full of some truly bizarre characters on a train. At first it was really weird. Straight up weird. But as we got into it, embraced our weird side and British side, we really liked it. It was really refreshing to be introduced to a new type of humor, the British can be so witty….and so odd. Loved it. After than we made our way back to the house and PASSED OUT once again at 2:00am (after talking some more with Tim).

The next day we wake up, take forever to get to the Tower of London, and hit that up for a bit. It was a bit crowed, but we did the audio tour (only 1 pound for us to share it- haha!), and had a pretty good time. My favorite part was seeing where the Boleyn sisters were executed and hearing all the other gruesome details of the Britian’s past. Afterwards, we went to the British Museum, checked out the Rosetta Stone, and….FOUND BAGELS!!! That’s right, out of all the cafes on the road, Devon and I randomly select one that has crepes and bagels. Most expensive, and most desired bagel of my life. So. Good. Then we headed over to King’s Cross so we could see Platform 9 and ¾, and not going to lie, that was REALLY exciting (even though the Harry Potter part was moved due to renovation…so it was technically platform 12 and ½). We then headed to our hotel. That’s right…no more couchsurfing for us. We love doing it, but it must be done in moderation, combined with hotels or it will drive you crazy. There comes a point where you want to have your own room and reserve the right not to be sociable. So we dropped our stuff off (and got comped a free breakfast and upgrade to the biggest room in the hotel since they gave us two separate rooms instead of one double) and went Westminster Square. I missed it while ill and couldn’t go to London without seeing Big Ben. Then we went to dinner. We wanted to go to the Red Lion Pub on my Dad’s suggestion, but it was closed. So we went to this stakehouse across from our hotel because…behold….they had chicken wings and potato skins! Well….it turns out they only have BBQ wings, not buffalo, so that was disappointing, but whatevs. I got a bagel and potato skins, so I can’t really complain. It was good, but expensive, and then we retired to the hotel, watched ENGLISH TELEVISION (Family Guy!!!) and drank rather good English tea. It was a fabulous night of relaxation.

The next day we got up bright and early and bused over to Nottingham! It was really cool to get out of London and I was SO excited to see Shae! We met at the bus station, had a fabulously cheap lunch, and then went to the Nottingham Castle. It was a lot of fun learning about Robin Hood and the history of Nottingham and all its glory. There’s an extensive cave system under the city and we took a tour through that, which was pretty sweet. We were told this crazy story about the bisexual King of England, King James, and his 14 year old wife. It was chalk full of betrayal and danger. Feel free to read more on it here if you don’t believe me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_I_of_England. We checked out Shae’s university, which was really nice (though it has a full bar in the student union-shocking!), and headed to the nearby village of Beeston. Since it was Sunday and there was little activity, we went back to the main square of Nottingham where we found an AMAZING meal (where I had my first fish and chips! (and nachos. Good, real nachos!)) and then we went our separate ways. It was SOOOOOO fun hanging out with Shae, we had such a lovely time, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

So yeah, we caught the bust back to London, to our nice, cozy hotel, where we stayed in the biggest room of the hotel and watched the Super Bowl! It was so funny because I was sincerely excited to see the game, because either way, America wins. It’s sad, but I was so excited. That, and I really missed football, especially since I didn’t get to see the BCS or the Senior Bowl. We only watched a quarter and a half (it started at 11pm in the UK), and then we went to bed in preparation for our last day in London.

First thing we did was hit up Westminster Abbey which was AMAZING. Hands down my favorite attraction in all of London. It was really cool to see the architecture of the interior and the graves of people like Charles Dickenson, Queen Elizabeth, Darwin, and Newton. Plus, when we left and thanked the doorman, he realized we were American and commented, “the Super Bowl was a great game, no?!” It made us laugh really hard. My response was “Go Saints!” It was pretty funny. Afterwards we went to St. Paul, and then we headed to the airport. All in all, other than my health issues, it was a really nice trip. We LOVED talking in English, what with being able to have conversations with waiters and ask for directions, so we were pretty sorry to leave. We also both felt like we needed more time there, at least one or two more days. The people are SO nice and there is so much to do! Oh well, I have a feeling it will be there for a while.

Coming back in, we weren’t even checked for anything, we just flashed our visas and were pointed through to continue. It felt so nice to be home (except for the pending Midterms which are rather difficult) and getting there went smoothly. We’re so tired though, so broke, (I’m still sick), have so much to do, and yet we’re so excited for spring break on Friday. For those of you who don’t know, Devon and I are taking on Spain and Morocco! We’re SO excited and it’ll be a great time fo sho! Sorry this post was so long, I hope it wasn’t too painful! I can’t wait to hear about how you all are doing, as usual, I hope you’re having an amazing time and doing well. I love you all more than words!!!!

Katie

P.S. I’ll post up pictures later, for the moment it’ll have to wait

P.S.S.....I tripped about 50 times this weekend, no lie :)

P.S.S.S It totally snowed when we were in London on Monday!